PASSAGE TO EUROPE.
A space of about a Hundred Days.
From Wednesday, August 20, to Friday, November 15.
WE SAIL FROM THE CAPE.—OUR PASSAGE.—WE
ANCHOR IN THE DOWNS.
Towards evening we proceeded to the beach, accompanied by our two excellent hosts of Tygerberg and the Cape, whose hospitable cares, extreme attention, and all the proofs of true affection which they gave us, have inspired us with deep feelings of gratitude. The weather was calm, but as we entered the boat, a favourable breeze sprung up, as by enchantment. We all exclaimed that this was an auspicious omen; but it was far from proving so: for it will be seen that our passage turned out to be one of the longest, and, towards the end, most frightful and terrible. We got on board, the anchor was weighed, and we at last set sail for that Europe we had so long wished for.
From the moment we got under weigh, I and my son were separated from Cape Town and the coast of Africa for ever. Not that they were out of sight even on the next day; but, because we both remained shut up below, suffering most terribly from sea-sickness, the effects of which lasted a considerable time, and of which we thought we should die. Our berth[berth] was small, dirty, and inconvenient; our brig was of about two hundred tons’ at most; and the crew consisted of twelve hands, two of whom were boys; and indeed, with the exception of the Captain and the Mate, the only two who could be reckoned able sea-men, and of the Cook, an infirm old man, all the rest were mere lads. This want of hands was the more striking to me, and tended the more to increase my natural disposition to sea-sickness; as, with the exception of the Griffin, I had never been on board any but seventy-four gun ships, manned by seven or eight hundred men.
After thirteen days’ sailing, we reached the tropic of Capricorn, and fell in with the trade-winds. On the Sunday following, the 7th of September, we passed in sight of St. Helena, but at a distance of upwards of fifteen leagues; it was hardly possible to perceive it. It would be necessary to have been on that Island, situated as I had been, led thither by similar motives, and to have felt the same affections, and all the other sentiments which my residence there had inspired me with, in order to conceive all the sensations which I experienced on finding myself near that spot,—all the thoughts which occurred to my mind,—the feelings of regret which assailed me. I had had it in my power to remain there; and I had wilfully chosen to banish myself from it!... Indeed, the experience I had had of the Cape began to make me fear that I had founded my determination on chimeras.
We were now sailing smoothly towards the equator, on this tropical sea, on which we had to go upwards of three thousand leagues. Our little vessel composed our universe. What a vast field of meditation! to find one’s self alone, for about a hundred days, on the vast ocean without any other shelter than the immense expanse of the heavens, on a floating atom, and separated only by a frail plank from the voracity of sea monsters, and an unfathomable abyss!
At the expiration of a month, 20th September, we at last got into our northern hemisphere again, by crossing the Line almost at the same time as the sun, which was going down towards the south, on our larboard tack. We were very fortunate in our navigation in the immediate vicinity north of the equator, where calms or storms are invariably met with. In those regions, the excessive heat of the equator, and that produced by the sands of Africa, combine to torment and harass nature, who expresses her lassitude by continued calms, or is roused by torrents of rain and terrible thunder-storms.
Twenty-five days afterwards, we passed the second tropic, and reached the boundaries of the variable winds of our regions.
We had left the Cape in winter, and after having crossed the torrid zone, we again found winter at the gates of Europe: thus tempests were stationed at the two extremities of our navigation. We had fortunately escaped the tempests of departure; but we had still to expect those of arrival: these we found at their post, and furious they turned out to be.
At the end of about twenty days of light and variable winds, we arrived off the Azores. Our voyage had been already extremely long. There have been instances of the passage from the Cape to England having been performed in thirty days;—the average perhaps is fifty days. We had now been eighty days at sea, and our troubles were only about to begin. When in sight of the Azores, our tribulation, and what we called our Passion week, commenced.
On the 1st of November we experienced our first gale; a moderate one, it is true, to begin with, as it were, and set us agoing.
On the 2nd November, we had a calm to give us breath. On the 3rd, came a second gale, still tolerable; but, during the night, which was one of the darkest imaginable, a third gale sprang up, and this time, it amounted to an absolute hurricane. The wind suddenly chopped round, from aft to fore, with a dreadful noise; and blowing furiously, it took, sideways, the few sails we had set, and in one instant, with the rapidity of thought, one side of the ship was in the water, and the sea reached nearly to the foot of the masts. A great number of the casks belonging to the cargo were upset, and by their weight increased the heeling of the ship, already so dangerous. Fortunately, the wind carried away the sails, which were abandoned to it, or we should have capsized. We all thought ourselves lost, and we must have been drowned, had not fate ordered it otherwise.
Such a state of things lasted the whole of Friday, the 7th. Suffering from sea sickness, I had not stirred from my hammock for a long while; but at about four o’clock, I took advantage of a more calm moment, to crawl to the outlet of our wretched cabin, to examine the state of our situation. The spectacle was truly grand, sublime, awful, terrible. The vast ocean, surmounted by a sky red with fury, covered with innumerable roaring mountains, and furrowed with deep valleys and fathomless abysses, formed a sight which filled me with an awful feeling of terror. Our little boat glided with admirable rapidity between two moving mountains, the extremities of which often met on our deck, threatening every moment to unite there together for our final destruction, whilst behind us huge rolling billows, similar to the fantastic monsters of fabulous history, pursued us with unrelenting ardour, raising their hideous heads above our stern, as if to contemplate and rush upon their prey, which continually escaped from them, not, however, without their carrying away, here and there, some pieces of timber from our upper works. This situation was one of imminent danger: few words were exchanged between us; we looked at each other in silence; and suffered things to take their course. It is certain that a false movement at the helm, or the slightest act of inattention or neglect, would have been sufficient to cause us to be instantly swallowed up. Had we been caught by one of these terrible waves astern of us, its weight would have borne down every thing before it, and that indeed was our greatest peril. We were more than once threatened with seeing our cabin stove in; the waves dashed over our heads, with a noise like the report of a cannon. We observed them, with terror, gaining ground upon us; and we spent a great part of the dreadful night that followed in securing and fortifying ourselves against them.
My son, who could neither go to bed nor sleep, frequently went upon deck to see how things were going on, and then came back to me, as I lay in my hammock. Not knowing what to do during that long and cruel night, to divert our minds from the contemplation of our situation, and beguile time, if possible, I endeavoured for a moment to dictate something to my son; it was a passage of ancient history. But, presently, a wave, having stove in some part of the works above, came and inundated my hammock, and the paper on which my son was writing. We thought ourselves at our last moment.
However, all that has been read was not destined to form the complement of our danger, or the extent of our fears. The tempest still lasted, and seemed even to increase; at last, on Saturday the 8th, towards morning, the man who was at the helm, as being the most dexterous and the most intrepid of the crew, declared that he would no longer take charge of it; he began to feel giddy, he said, and he feared lest some error on his part should prove fatal to all. We were then obliged to have recourse to our last resource, mettre à la cape, that of letting the ship drive before the wind; a most ticklish manœuvre in the desperate situation in which we were placed, because we ran the risk of going down in the attempt to execute it. But Providence still favoured us; by the greatest good fortune possible, we succeeded, and a shout of joy and gratitude from the whole of the crew above, imparted to us below the welcome news. We considered ourselves most fortunate, although the difference between the two situations was chiefly this, that whereas before we ran the risk of foundering, by being taken by the sea aft, we now had the chance of foundering, by the sea taking us on the beam.
This violent gale had now lasted three days, and our week was going on towards its completion. I placed great reliance upon the Sunday, which was about to begin, not only on account of the moon, but also because Sunday had happened to be peculiarly marked by something favourable to us ever since our departure. Nor were our hopes disappointed, for, in the course of the night between Saturday to Sunday, the weather became tolerably moderate, and, when daylight appeared, we were enabled once more to pursue our course. It is certain that, from a strange combination of circumstances, the Sundays had always been marked by some fortunate events, since our departure from the Cape. It was on a Sunday that we had passed the southern tropic, and fallen in with the trade-winds; on a Sunday we had seen St. Helena; on a Sunday we had passed the Island of Ascension; on a Sunday we had crossed the Line; on a Sunday we had passed the second tropic; on a Sunday we had arrived in the latitude off Gibraltar, the first point of Europe; lastly, it was on a Sunday that we had arrived in the latitude of Bayonne and Bordeaux, the beginning of our dear France; and it was on a Sunday again that we were at this moment ending that terrible week off Brest. We might fairly reckon henceforward, we said, upon some fine weather; we thought that we had sufficiently paid our tribute; we hoped that we had exhausted the fury of the wind: the lead brought up European clay; and we only thought of an agreeable termination to our voyage. But, vain calculation! our lucky Sunday being over, we had to encounter a fifth gale.
We were now beginning to enter the Channel without, however, having yet seen land, by which means our true position was unknown to us. Prudence required us to stand out to sea, but fortunately it was not for a long time; and, having resumed our course, we at last came within sight of the Lizard Point; but we seemed doomed not to have twenty-four hours of comfort. A thick fog almost immediately came on, and a sixth gale sprung up under the most inauspicious appearances. It blew from the south, and therefore threatened to drive us ashore; we were now in the Channel and without shelter: on one side we had the Lizard, and on the other the Scilly isles, which are extremely dangerous; there was a very heavy sea: we did not know precisely where we were; night was coming on, and a night of fourteen hours! How many causes of uneasiness! What a state of perplexity both for the mind and for a calculation of the chances! We were all completely downcast and disheartened; when a shower of rain, accompanied by thunder, although it was then in the middle of November and the weather very cold, broke the spell. The wind suddenly veered to the proper quarter, and this time it put an end to all our difficulties by bringing us into the Downs, where we anchored. Happy, and ten times happy, to have escaped dangers so formidable and so numerous!
VOYAGE FROM THE THAMES TO
FRANKFORT.
An Interval of Twenty Days.
From November 16 to December 11.
I AM NOT ALLOWED TO REMAIN IN ENGLAND.—REMOVAL TO OSTEND.—PERSECUTIONS IN BELGIUM, PRUSSIA, &C.—AGREEABLE COMPENSATIONS.—ARRIVAL AT FRANKFORT.
On the preceding evening we had anchored in the Downs, merely for that night; the next morning, at day-break, we set sail for the Thames, London being our place of destination. It now appeared as if no occurrence could henceforth keep me from that city, and I was already calculating the hour of arrival. All my hopes might at last be realized; my confidence was returning; but how greatly was I mistaken!
Arrived at Gravesend, where a vessel is stationed for the special purpose of superintendence over foreigners, I no sooner gave my name than an agent of government informed me that I could not proceed any further, and that I must follow him immediately, with my luggage, on board of the Alien Ship. In vain I remonstrated, and represented to him that, with my passport, I was in strict conformity with the regulations: that very document it was which condemned me. I have been since informed that this measure had been ordered against me in every port of England, long before my arrival.
I was no sooner on board the Alien Ship, than seals were placed upon my papers, and I was apprized that I must wait for final orders from Government. I had written to Lord Bathurst the very instant of our anchoring in the Downs; I now wrote to him again. I was ignorant of his intentions towards me; but it seemed to me impossible that he should not eagerly summon me before him; and, above all things, it could not enter into my mind that he would neglect to avail himself of so favourable an opportunity for hearing a counter-statement of all that had taken place at St. Helena. It will be seen, however, that I was mistaken in my suppositions.
With the exception of being kept in confinement, every mark of attention was shewn to me on board the Alien Ship. The Captain, who had had very little to do since the peace, and who never made his appearance but in the day time, gave me his own bed to sleep in.
Harassed by these fresh vexations, suffering from my habitual complaints, and wearied of my new prison, I had gone to bed at an early hour, when I was awaked on a sudden, in the silence of night, by a shrill voice. “Count, Count,” cried some one who was seeking for me in every corner, and who in his hurry had not even waited to procure a light, “It is the Prince Regent’s pleasure that you instantly quit Great Britain.” In the confusion of my broken sleep I chanced to reply, “Assuredly this is a very sorry and silly pleasure for his Royal Highness; but you, Sir, who are you?” He then told me that he was a government messenger. I requested that he would wait until I should be ready, and I tried in vain to complete my night’s rest. At daybreak my son and I were desired to step into a boat, landed with mystery, thrust into a post-chaise, and conducted by the shortest road to Dover, where my guide informed me that he had orders to see me on board of the packet for Calais or Ostend, whichever I preferred, as I was not allowed to fix my choice upon any other port.
It happened, from some cause or other, that we could not sail immediately from Dover, and I was told that there might be a delay of two or three days. We were shut up in an inn, where my keeper, under the specious pretence of consulting my convenience, practised upon me the meanest of all contrivances. If complaints are made on the Continent of disgraceful proceedings on the part of police agents, it must be admitted that the man we had now to deal with might well rival those of any other country.
Having happened to say that it was a pity my papers had been sealed up, as otherwise I might have taken advantage of my stay, in order to write a few letters, he immediately protested against the hardship of my being deprived of what he called a most innocent and a most natural satisfaction; and directly went himself to break the seals, and gave me up all my papers, recommending me to do all in my power to alleviate the unpleasantness of my present situation, of which he was the unwilling instrument. Will it be believed that this was nothing more than a snare laid for me, in order that he might afterwards have the pleasure of seizing whatever I might have written, under the delusion of a feeling of confidence which he thus excited! During the time we were together, this man had been remarkable for his officiousness towards us, coupled, it is true, with a thousand impertinent expressions, which sufficiently evinced all his baseness. He told me, for instance, that he and his colleagues considered it their duty to know no other law than the pleasure of the Prince: he spoke of his master, Lord Sidmouth, the Secretary for the Home Department; of his master who had preceded Lord Sidmouth, and so on; and as I observed, in joke, that I had thought that he belonged to the Administration, and not to the Minister, he replied, with the utmost candour, that I was mistaken; that he belonged to the Minister, as it was the Minister who paid him his salary, and who might take it away at his pleasure. He added much other nonsense of the same kind, which savoured more of the negro slave of Jamaica than of a white of Europe, and of a citizen of Great Britain; this, however, would have been a matter of perfect indifference to me, had not his base principles been put in practice upon me, as the sequel will shew.
At the very moment of our departure, and, when I was on the point of starting, this man, until then so complaisant and so officious, told me, in rather an insolent manner, that he had a trifling formality to fulfil towards me; and, seizing upon all my luggage, he searched most minutely amongst my linen and clothes, took possession of all my papers, without the least ceremony, and even refused to give me any kind of inventory of them. I complained aloud; I called for the protection of the Magistrates; I demanded that my protest, at least, should be received; I was answered that, in the situation in which I was placed, and being a foreigner, the benefit of the laws which I invoked could not be extended to me; and in this manner I was obliged to quit England, leaving, however, behind me, the following letter for Lord Sidmouth:—
“My Lord,—It is with feelings of the deepest regret that I do myself the honour of addressing your Lordship, aware that your reply, which might perhaps gratify the object of my wishes, will reach me too late.
“For the last four days I have been in the power of your messenger: who, upon his arrival, removed the seals which had been put upon my papers, saying that he again placed them at my disposal. He has since seen me write, has even encouraged me to do so, and has waited for the moment of my departure, to take possession, in your name, of every one of my papers. This is a snare, my Lord, which my heart forbids me to attribute to a higher quarter than the individual who has practised it. That messenger understood no language but English; he called another person to his aid, who pretended to understand a little French, and who has thought proper to peruse my papers, one after another, and even to detain them all. There was enough for a whole week’s reading, and I did not imagine that any private individual could have such a right over me.
“Every thing has been taken from me, letters, notes, my son’s exercises, title-deeds, family secrets, official documents from Sir Hudson Lowe and Lord Charles Somerset, my daily memoranda, even a letter to the French Minister of Police, and another to my wife, which I had prepared during my leisure moments here, in order that I might forward them on my landing at Ostend. They have been taken without allowing an inventory or register to be made of them. Such, they said, was your Lordship’s order. In the first burst of indignation, I have protested against this violence, and demanded that a Magistrate might receive my complaint. I shall not record here the reply that has been given to me. Recovered from the first moment of surprise, and dreading nothing so much as to see my name mentioned in public discussions; considering also how impossible it was that your Lordship should have ordered so great a deviation from the rules of every acknowledged system of jurisprudence, according to which governments are required, in cases like the present, to take such measures as will enable them to guard against the possibility of being accused of having withdrawn or superadded any document; I contented myself with urging and most earnestly entreating the messenger, who had my fate in his hands, to allow of my departure being retarded until I had been able to write to your Lordship, and until he had himself received a confirmation of his rigorous orders. But this man, who had already caused a delay of three days upon slight pretexts, proved quite inflexible on the present important occasion. In vain I represented to him that I had no objection to shew all my papers to the confidential persons whom your Lordship might have appointed to see them; that it was even for your Lordship’s interest that certain formalities should be observed towards me; that, in the examination of my papers, my presence would be useful, if not absolutely necessary, in order to explain many things that could not be understood without me; whereas, he was sending me to the Continent, and forwarding my papers to London; that no doubt there was some mistake, which twenty-four hours’ time would clear up. I was coolly told, in reply, that I need not be uneasy about returning from the Continent, if that was thought necessary, as your Lordship would defray all the expense of the voyage. My Lord, in what hands have you placed me? On another occasion, in which this man could surely not have consulted your wishes, I found myself compelled to silence my guard, in consequence of the gross and injurious expressions which he used concerning the illustrious personage whom I respect above all others in this world.
“In short, my Lord, since I have reached your shores, I have been treated as a malefactor; and yet, where is my crime? A difference of political opinion, perhaps, and a voluntary imprisonment at Longwood! But is not the latter act one of the most noble and most generous; one so highly honourable that the man does not exist who, at the bottom of his heart, would not be proud of having set the example of it? My Lord, the mildness of disposition and love of justice, which are said to distinguish your Lordship, cannot, I am confident of it, have authorized all that has been done to me. Having been allowed to affix my seal to the papers that have been taken from me, I have hastened to do so, not as a precaution against your Lordship, but on the contrary, to remedy, in your behalf, the want of formality of which your agents may have been guilty.
“I entreat your Lordship to reconsider my case, and not to form an opinion upon my papers, without having first received from me the explanations you may require; and which I shall ever be most ready to afford. I affirm beforehand that, whatever difference of opinion and feeling may be found in them, there is not one that will not bear the test of a judicial investigation or of a friendly discussion. They contain nothing possessing any degree of interest in state matters, and no political secrets. I never possessed any documents of that kind, and if I had, opportunities would not have been wanting to have put them out of the way long before this.
“It would perhaps be the moment to speak also to your Lordship about the papers which have been taken from me at St. Helena, as well as respecting many other subjects to which I shall have to refer, either with your Lordship or Lord Bathurst; but the short space of time that I am allowed, and the confusion of ideas produced by circumstances so sudden and unforeseen, oblige me to defer doing so to some future period.
“I shall anxiously await the answer which your Lordship may be pleased to give me; but where I know not; most probably at Brussels, if I am allowed to remain there.
“I have the honour,” &c.
I was put on board a packet, and we sailed for Ostend; and, as I have now and then taken the liberty to speak of physical sufferings, I shall be forgiven, if, in order to afford a more correct idea of what I must have suffered during my long passage, I observe here that, notwithstanding the hundred days which I had just passed at sea, I still happened to be sick again on board this packet, although the weather was not absolutely bad. This was undoubtedly very ridiculous, but no less true.
The next day I got to Ostend, and landed without any observation having been made to me by any person. I again thought that this time my misfortunes were at an end, and that I had recovered my liberty; but I was again mistaken; persecutions of another kind were, on the contrary, going to begin: however, I had every reason to be satisfied with the first moments of my residence.
I had not been long at the inn before an agent of the local authorities came and told me, without my being able to guess how I had been already found out, that he had received orders to watch over me, and that he had immediately come to ask me in what manner I wished him to fulfil his instructions.
I had not been accustomed to such polite manner for a length of time, and I made this observation to him; adding, that the step he had taken was quite sufficient to induce me to resign myself with entire confidence to whatever he might wish to do with me; and, as his politeness had led to a prolongation of the conversation between us, which seemed greatly to excite his curiosity, he soon told me that he was going to put a question to me which was indiscreet, no doubt, and perhaps improper; but that he could not resist his desire of being informed whether it was true that I had left Napoleon because he was so much soured by misfortune that it was impossible to live with him; for the English ministerial papers had circulated a thousand reports respecting me, one more ridiculous than the other. I replied to him with a smile, “Sir, if I had any thing to say against Napoleon, if I had the least subject of complaint to adduce against him, be assured that you would not have to guard me at this moment, and that I should be far from being ill treated any where.” Upon which he exclaimed in his turn, striking his forehead, that such was the answer which ought to have suggested itself to his mind. His attentions towards me after this explanation became still more marked; and, having learnt from me that it was my intention to go to Brussels, he imposed no other condition to the uncontrolled liberty which he left me than that of not taking my departure without informing him of it, assuring me at the same time that a determination respecting me could not be delayed twenty-four hours longer, as a courier had been despatched to the Governor of the province, whose return would, in all probability, set me entirely at liberty.
I took advantage of the delay, to which I was thus obliged to submit, to write to the Ministers of the Police of France and of the Netherlands, respectively, concerning the situation in which I was henceforth to be placed.
To the French Minister I wrote in the following manner.
“Sir,—I think it right, on landing on the Continent, to inform your Excellency of the circumstances in which I am placed; and I trust that you will approve the motives that induce me to do so.
“A year ago, I was suddenly removed from Longwood, and have been, since that period, carried from shore to shore like a captive. On entering the Thames, I received an order to depart instantly to the Continent, having no other choice allowed to me but to proceed either to Calais or Ostend.
“A feeling of delicacy and prudence has prompted me to prefer Ostend.
“France is, of all countries, that where my appearance is most likely to be watched, and I have wished to spare the department over which you preside, and myself, the inconveniencies attending such a measure. This double consideration has induced me to adopt the cruel resolution of self-banishment. I have also been actuated by another motive, viz. the hope of possessing in this country greater facilities (setting aside all political views, influenced only by private and personal feelings of affection), for procuring through the legal channel allowed by the English regulations, and even under the cover of the British Ministers, some alleviation and innocent consolations for the martyrs at Longwood. In France, this pious and sacred care might have been misinterpreted, and might consequently have given rise to impediments.
“I hope that a statement so open and candid will remove all unfavourable impressions that might have been suggested to your mind by the circumstances of my case; and, in furtherance of that object, I now take the liberty of enclosing under cover to you, an unsealed letter for my wife, in whose favour I request the interposition of your kindness, in any thing relating to your functions, that may facilitate the means of her coming to share my voluntary exile. Receive,” &c.
To the Minister of the Netherlands I wrote, that it is usual to endeavour to escape from being rendered subject to superintendence; but that I, on the contrary, came to request to be placed under his. I repeated to him, as in the preceding letter, what had happened to me in the Thames, and that I had been thrown on the Continent without any motive having been adduced, or any cause assigned for this measure.
I informed him that I had just written to the Minister of the Police of France, to lay before him the motives which induced me to expose myself to voluntary exile. I represented to him that I was very ill, and that the state of my son’s health was most alarming; that I had just made a passage of a hundred days’ duration in a very small vessel—that I was entirely ignorant as to whether my wife and family were still in existence—that I was totally in the dark respecting the state of my domestic concerns; and, taking all these circumstances into consideration, I entreated him to allow me to reside for a few days at Brussels, to breathe and look around me, to send for my wife, and have the benefit of the attendance of a physician; adding that, perhaps, in the mean time, the British Ministers, whose harsh and precipitate conduct towards me must necessarily have been founded on some error, would consent to allow me to be present, agreeably to my request, at the examination of the papers which they had taken from me.
In conclusion, I assured him that I entertained no political views or feelings, that my sentiments were solely sentiments of individual affection and personal attachment; that such sentiments were natural and honourable, and that my open avowal of them must afford a perfect security that they were not calculated to give any cause of uneasiness.
I owe it to justice and to gratitude to state that my letter to the Minister of the Police of France had at least the effect of obtaining from him, when occasion offered, all that might be expected from a gentleman.
Such was not the case with respect to the Minister of the Netherlands; the only answer I received from him was the arrival of guards to secure my person. Orders were sent in every direction to find me out again, for they thought I was lost. As I had been told by the person intrusted with the superintendence over me, the permission from the Governor to continue my journey soon arrived, and I had immediately taken advantage of it; choosing, on account of the weak state of my health, the easy, but obscure and slow, conveyance of the barges and canals. This had not been thought of; and they were seeking for me at a great distance from Ostend, whilst I was still almost at its gates. My unsuspecting confidence and security had baffled all their calculations; they had not yet got the exact description of my person, and were consequently much embarrassed to know me; however, I myself soon put an end to their perplexity by throwing myself up, as the saying is, into the wolf’s jaws.
My first step, after my arrival at Brussels, which I reached late in the evening, after a journey of three days, was to send to inform the police of my being in that city, and ask what had been the determination of the Minister relative to my case, in consequence of the letter which I had addressed to him from Ostend. The generous answer to my innocent confidence was, to send instantly to surround the inn where I was, and they waited with impatience the first dawn of day to signify to me that I must leave the kingdom of the Netherlands without the least delay. I was very much indisposed, and had some degree of fever about me; nevertheless, I vainly appealed to their compassion, and asked to be allowed to stay one day longer.
Very serious obstacles must certainly have existed to my being permitted to sojourn in Brussels, or a predisposition to treat me with cruelty, for I was not allowed even one hour. They placed me in a carriage between a police officer and a gendarme, and turned me on the high road. These people, who saw my condition, took compassion upon me, and after a few hours’ journey consented to stop, in order that I might procure a little rest and some requisite medical attendance; but under the express condition that I should resume my journey at an early hour on the following morning, in charge of the guards appointed to succeed them; a system that was strictly acted upon and repeated in every town, notwithstanding the repeated observations and the testimony of all medical men. This cruel treatment compelled me to complain to the French Ambassador at the court of the Netherlands, who I thought would warmly resist such a proceeding; for it was an insult to his public character to treat in this manner, without any just motive, and in direct violation of the laws, a Frenchman who was placed under his protection. I therefore informed him of the vexatious and inhuman conduct which was then exercised towards me.
I told him “that, upon landing at Ostend I had written to the French Minister of Police, to state to him my motives for remaining out of France; that I had also written at the same time to the Minister of the Police of the Netherlands, requesting he would allow me to sojourn a short time in Brussels, and that, having reached that city at a late hour, without having been guarded or placed under any superintendence, I had hastened to inform his Excellency of my arrival; but that I had been suddenly awaked before day-light on the following morning, and surrounded by four police officers and two gendarmes, who signified to me that I must instantly depart, notwithstanding the very precarious state of my health; that I had in vain demanded a physician to verify my case; that I had been told that I should be allowed one for form’s sake, but that I must depart, whatever might be his opinion; that, in fact, I had been removed to Louvain like a malefactor, and in the last stage of sickness, under the escort of a gendarme and of a police officer; that, having arrived in this town during the night, suffering from increased illness, covered with blisters, and in a state of fever, I had asked to be allowed to stop the following day; that the Burgomaster had been inhuman enough to refuse my request, in spite of two or three very strong medical certificates; that, having demanded that the physician at least might accompany me in the carriage, instead of the gendarme, who could follow on horseback, this favour had also been refused me; that all that could be allowed, they said, was that the physician should accompany me in another carriage. This was, no doubt, a piece of irony.”
I added, “that I was quite certain such treatment could not proceed from him who alone, however, on this occasion, would have a right to exercise any influence over my fate; that I was too well acquainted with the sentiments of the nation to which we belonged to suppose for a moment that his instructions could decree the proscription of a person towards whom there neither was, nor could be, any law or motive for such a proceeding; that the ill usage I experienced could therefore only proceed from the authorities of this country, where however, in common justice, I ought not to be considered in any other light than as a traveller; that as such I would demand of them what was my crime, and what were their rights over my person.” And I concluded by placing my interests under his care, as his situation made him their natural protector; and, with a view to call his attention more particularly to me, I gave him news of Madame Bertrand, his wife’s sister, which I had received just as I was leaving Dover, and I offered myself, in case Madame de Latour Dupin wished to say any thing to her sister, to whom it would afford the greatest pleasure, to take charge of it, as I proposed to write to Madame Bertrand regularly once a month, by the channel which the English regulations allowed, viz., under the very cover of Ministers.
His Excellency made no reply to this letter; his endeavours, no doubt, proved unavailing; the impulse, the very orders, perhaps, emanated at this time from the other side of the water.
I continued in this manner, without intermission, transferred from town to town, from one police officer to another, from gendarme to gendarme, across the whole kingdom of the Netherlands; and when I occasionally asked, in the height of my sufferings, what could be the motive for such harsh treatment, I was simply told, in reply, that such were the orders that had been given; and, in fact, this was all that appeared to be known on the subject. Arrived at Aix-la-Chapelle, on the Prussian territory, I was there exchanged by the Agents of the Netherlands for a receipt, as might have been done with a bale of goods; and the Prussians, in their turn, hurried me along with equal rapidity from place to place, from officer to officer, and from one gendarme to another; and when I enquired of them also the motive of all this, they candidly answered that they did not know; but that I had been thrown into their country, and that they were going to throw me out of it. If I asked to stop, they politely replied that they would not keep me upon their territory; and some friends, for it will hereafter be seen that I found friends every where, whispered in my ear that I ought to thank God for it, and above all things, to take immediate advantage of this piece of good fortune, as some exiled Frenchmen had lately been forced to the shores of the Baltic, and shut up in fortresses. I then declared that I desired to go to Frankfort, an expression which appeared to give pleasure to my hosts, the Prussians, as they said it would no longer concern them. After what I had just learnt, I was equally rejoiced at this upon my own account.
After having described, but very feebly, all the savage brutality that had just been exercised upon me, all the vexations and sufferings that I had endured, it would be unjust and ungrateful in me, and I should be depriving myself of the most gratifying sensation, were I to omit mentioning the kind of compensation which I found at every step of my journey.
My story had made a great noise; it had spread in every direction; it preceded me; the public papers had laid hold of it. It was known whom I had served, to whom I had wished to devote my care, for whom I suffered; and all endeavoured to mark their sense of my conduct. All classes were eager to evince every mark of attention and sympathy towards me; and open demonstrations, or secret offers, awaited me every where. It was then that those words of Napoleon’s occurred to my mind, which I have, by the way, had many subsequent occasions to recal to my recollection: “My dear friends, when you shall have returned to Europe, you will find that, from this spot, I still bestow crowns.” And can there be a nobler, a more precious one, than the esteem, the affection, the sympathy, of those even who know you not, and have never seen you! What hand, however powerful, can bestow any thing of equal value! These feelings manifested themselves at inns, upon the high-roads, every where. Postboys, gendarmes, all that I met with on my journey, addressed me with a kind of pride and exultation. One said, “I belonged to the Imperial Guard;” another, “I was a French gendarme;” a third, “I have been a soldier under Napoleon.” These recollections, and the feelings of good-will to which they gave rise, appeared in all classes and conditions. Twice, in Belgium, offers were made to rescue me, every thing having been, I was informed, carefully prepared beforehand; the same offer had already been made to me at the Cape, by an American Captain; and a similar proposal was made to me at a later period, on the part of some Englishmen, to whom I was quite unknown, and who had resolved to come from London in order to carry me off from Frankfort, where they thought me in a much worse situation than I really was. But I invariably replied—“What end would it answer? Why should I injure so noble a cause?”
The very agents of authority felt an anxiety concerning my fate, and a kind of interest for me. One of them, although appointed to watch me, offered to take charge of any paper that I would venture to intrust to his care; I availed myself of his offer, as I did not see any inconvenience in so doing, even if he had some bad intention, as he might possibly have, and I addressed, to a person of high rank in England, a letter of half a dozen lines, describing with warmth the ill usage which the British Ministers had made me suffer for the last twelve months, and requesting that he would publish my statement, if he saw no objection to it. I enclosed, with the same view, that part of the Emperor’s letter which I had been allowed to copy, adding that I should have continued to to keep it to myself, had not the ridiculous and insulting reports, which were inserted in the newspapers, rendered it imperative upon me to make it public. I, however, left to his discretion to decide what should be done.
How great was my surprise to see the whole published in the Belgic papers two days afterwards! I was extremely mortified at it; it was not at all consistent with my disposition to wish to make so much noise. I was, above all, especially hurt that the person in England to whom I addressed my letter, and to whom I was unknown, should receive it only through the public press: this mode of proceeding was also totally inconsistent with my manners. I was at a loss to conceive how the thing could have happened. I have since learnt that my confident, in the warmth of his zeal, had consulted with two or three persons of the same way of thinking, and that, the papers having been read in their little council, they had decided that, instead of losing time in sending them to England, where, perhaps, no use would be made of them, it would be better to publish them instantly upon the spot, where indeed they created a very lively sensation. Notwithstanding the trouble that I then suffered from them, they proved eventually of the most signal advantage to me.
In short, there would be no end to it were I to mention the affecting marks of attention that were shewn to me; the offers of all kinds, in money, clothes, &c.; even people of the very lowest class were eager to tender their mite. One of them, forcing his way into my apartment, from which he was pulled back by the gendarmes, cried out to me that he had only two coats; that he saw, by my size, that the second would not fit me; that he was therefore going to sell it, and would throw me the amount through the window. What sufferings, what torments would not be effaced by the sensations which such acts must produce!
I was, however, so ill, on arriving at Cologne, that it was found necessary[necessary] to allow me to stop twenty-four hours in that town. This increase of suffering turned out a fortunate circumstance for me. I was in a gentle sleep when, on a sudden, the valet de place rushed into my apartment, with demonstrations of that joy which the bearer of good news is sure to occasion and even to experience, and announced to me Madame de Las Cases. I had not yet been able to ascertain whether she was alive, and therefore thought that I had misunderstood the man, or was dreaming; but a moment afterwards, the door was thrown open—it was she herself!